BM Hunters on Elegon - Kill Command Issues?

Hi everyone,

I wanted to ask some of the more veteran BM hunters in this forum about how exactly Kill Command works. I switched over to BM for Elegon after having been inspired by Kripparrian's video (well, also comparing top SV and top BM parses on World of Logs), and I've come across a problem when switching targets from Elegon to the Energy Charges in Phase 2.

I've taken to leaving my pet on Assist, even though ideally I'd prefer to set it to Passive and leave it on the boss when the Phase 1 adds appear. Having my pet on Assist, I'd have figured that during Phase 2, as soon as I target and start attacking my assigned Energy Charge, that my pet would also switch over when I call for a Kill Command. I normally hit KC as early as possible when the add spawns--usually my first or second GCD, before spamming Arcane Shots.

This doesn't seem to work so well, though: some of the times (many of the times, in fact), when I hit KC, my pet would KC Elegegon, and _not_ the add that I was targeting. This is a HUGE problem, as you can imagine. I went to the training dummies in the VoH and tried something similar: set my pet on one of the dummies, attacked for a bit, then switched over to another dummy a few yards away and hit KC. The KC definitely looked like it hit the original dummy (i.e. the pet was still on that one when it went off), before my pet moved over to the second dummy I was targeting after a few more GCD cycles.

Am I doing something wrong? I need to absolutely maximize my (and my pet's) uptime on each Energy Charge as soon as I switch targets, and I'm not sure why KC is interacting so strangely with Pet Assist. Should I maybe macro a /petattack into my Arcane Shot? How do BM hunters deal with those Energy Charges? The Kripparrian video seemed to suggest that he just switches over and the pet immediately does too.

Btw, if anyone would like to give me some feedback on my reforges, I'd appreciate that too. I'm at:

If you were inspiried by Kripps video, you'd know that he didn't actually switch to the sparks (except for sub-20% kill shot damage) .
In any case, as has been stated, your best option is to have a /petattack macro - when I, once in a blue moon, play BM I put my pet on passive, and have a /petattack trigger, so I can leave my pet on the most beneficial target, and dps another target myself (minimising downtime on the pet, meaning better deepz for me).

Thanks so much for the quick feedback, guys! Really good to know that the interaction between KC and Pet Assist is wonky because of the engine, and not because of something I'm doing (or not doing) on my end.

I love the options for adding /petattack into KC, and even more the [target=playertarget] macro modifier, but if I hardwire this into my basic attack macros, I'll basically be pulling my pet off of Elegon each and every time I decide to attack something else. Which is fine (necessary) for the Energy Charges in P2, but less so with the Celestial Protectors in P1 since my pet would have to travel back and forth between boss and add, and therefore lose uptime. I remember reading (I think on these forums) that a pet is basically a melee dps that contributes roughly 40% of your damage in BM!

I think what I'm going to try to do is just have a keybind for /petattack - it doesn't waste any GCDs so I can immediately hit another attack button afterwards, but it does seem to force the pet to interrupt its attack cycle on its current target and switch it to my new target; at least it works with training dummies.

Thank you all again for your feedback about this!

---------- Post added 2012-10-08 at 03:39 AM ----------

Wow Dracodraco, I didn't see your reply before I posted my own, but that's exactly what I decided on! Thanks for your reply! Your opinions on BM in these forums have largely influenced my decision to stay with SV for most of this raid tier =).

Another thing to note is that Kripp used Master's Call to get his pet back to him immediately when he wanted to dps the columns. Not the sparks, mind you, just the columns.

You should probably watch the video more closely. It's actually very useful in teaching you how to facepull the encounter and still do really well, lol. He barely moves, his damage is entirely single target with only a few target swaps. And he gets a huge damage buff that he can control with a single jump. His positioning is perfect.

Another thing to note is that Kripp used Master's Call to get his pet back to him immediately when he wanted to dps the columns. Not the sparks, mind you, just the columns.

You should probably watch the video more closely. It's actually very useful in teaching you how to facepull the encounter and still do really well, lol. He barely moves, his damage is entirely single target with only a few target swaps. And he gets a huge damage buff that he can control with a single jump. His positioning is perfect.

Makes me wish we still had the SV stand-still-to-do-more-dps buff XD

My favorite parts of it was "I don't know why everyone else ran to their positions, but I could hit my add from here, so I just went with it", and "I don't know why you take damage during this phase. I guess the adds do it?" .

But yea, using that to retract your pet is actually quite clever - there's just not alot of situations where it's usefull, this being one of the few. Still doesn't solve the targetting issue, only the macro does that .

I had absolutely no issues with Kill Command on Elegon. I was very rusty at BM, haven't played it in well over a year, but I managed to grab a fairly good parse on it.

---------- Post added 2012-10-08 at 01:58 PM ----------

Originally Posted by gulder

Another thing to note is that Kripp used Master's Call to get his pet back to him immediately when he wanted to dps the columns. Not the sparks, mind you, just the columns.

You should probably watch the video more closely. It's actually very useful in teaching you how to facepull the encounter and still do really well, lol. He barely moves, his damage is entirely single target with only a few target swaps. And he gets a huge damage buff that he can control with a single jump. His positioning is perfect.

Makes me wish we still had the SV stand-still-to-do-more-dps buff XD

We have that ability for a reason, why is everyone fixated on that as if it's some amazing game play technique? Heck, even a few raiders told me that I could be doing that to move my pet around easier - I didn't have the heart to tell them that it is one of the primary reasons I use it, the other for being my mouseover freedom for when I see someone impaired on Grid.

forces the pet to Kill Command its current target, leave your pet on passive, force it to switch targets with the first macro and the KC macro will do the rest of the work, this allows you too deal with adds and other things whilst KC goes off on the boss without peeling your pet away.
Now obviously I haven't done Elegon yet but I cant see a reason why this macro pair wouldn't work as it has on every boss since 5.0.1 (when I started using BM go figure)

I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, is the only sensible way to love.

I had absolutely no issues with Kill Command on Elegon. I was very rusty at BM, haven't played it in well over a year, but I managed to grab a fairly good parse on it.

---------- Post added 2012-10-08 at 01:58 PM ----------

We have that ability for a reason, why is everyone fixated on that as if it's some amazing game play technique? Heck, even a few raiders told me that I could be doing that to move my pet around easier - I didn't have the heart to tell them that it is one of the primary reasons I use it, the other for being my mouseover freedom for when I see someone impaired on Grid.

I don't pvp, so those abilities are usually sitting unused in my spellbook. I happen to have keybound everything this tier, but I still don't use the cc abilities, so it was a pretty big 'WHOA' moment for me.

Originally Posted by bellatrex

We killed him last night, but I couldn't get my pet back with Masters Call - luckily they don't fall in when the floor drops, so you can get them back by KCing them to the pillar you're killing.

I did have KC issues on sparks too, but I expect stuff like that and it's part of why I hate BM - pet management is a pain in the ass and there's too many buggy things with pathing and attacking/

Floor doesn't drop immediately, so maybe you were late with recalling your pet? I just find it weird that it would work for one person and not for another.

Floor doesn't drop immediately, so maybe you were late with recalling your pet? I just find it weird that it would work for one person and not for another.

That could be it - I just left my pet on the boss until the floor dropped completely - the pet doesn't fall in, so I don't see the point of calling him back early. It's not hard to DPS down the pillars and like I said KC gets him to the pillar quickly anyway.

Originally Posted by Libertarian

I don't understand why Elegon was 5th and emperor was 6th. I would have swapped the two. Elegon was much more of an "epic" fight and felt much like an end boss.

I think you have to keep in mind that there are 2 other raid instances to come so he's not really an end of raid boss anyway - just end of instance boss. Although, I do see your point and agree that Elegon was much more epic and fun.

Had alot of problems with KC going of last night on Elagon, was BM due to Heroism and saw that Rogerbrown from Method has decided to use Blink Strike (and done well) in his BM set up. I'm guess it works pretty damn good on a fight like this where there are periods of target switching and KC not going of on the orbs, unless you manually order your pet to attack the orb. I decided to stick my pet on passive and leave it on the boss in the end and did fine with the orbs with Arcane Shots. That said I may give Blink Strike a go this reset.